Geo-locational services tie the link between digital and offline: Unlike a Facebook fan or Twitter follower, you actually know when a geo-location user has entered your store or other target location. All geo services rely on users "checking in" to physical locations where (depending on service) they can find other users, append data (tips, posts, pictures, etc.), find out about local happenings, and earn points. The top geo-location services include elements of game play into their offerings; savvy marketers are creating new experiences for these environments and driving foot traffic, earned media, and word-of-mouth. The top two geo-location services for marketers seem to be Gowalla and Foursquare, but others have more users and Facebook is poised to enter the fray.

How does it work? Gowalla (250k users, Austin TX based) and Foursquare (1.1mm users, NYC based) have reward systems in place whereby users earn "badges" or "pins" or titles (such as "mayor"). Badges, pins, and titles are so far not officially redeemable for anything, but business are beginning to create incentives and rewards for users to check in and earn these honors.

Current mktg. uses in Foursquare include:
--Branded badges: Earned (or “unlocked”) with a certain number of check-ins at given locations, showing a badge may result in a special gift, experience, or bragging rights.
--Rewards for Mayors: Mayors are top location visitors, and may be comped meals or allowed past the velvet rope, etc. Bragging rights are also hotly contested!
--Check-ins often prompt a special offer (discount, glass of champagne) that may be broadcast to friends (either through Foursquare or twitter/facebook/etc.)
--Somewhat random give-aways to users who check-in: gear, special invite, etc. (choose a well-known blogger for greater spread, this takes coordination).
--Foursquare allows “tips” to be included in location info, retail stores seed their locations with tips, facts, stories. They also use the “to-do” function to drive traffic to other venues or provide fashion pointers.
--The “Swarm” badge is tough to unlock...50 people need to check in simultaneously. Create an opportunity for people to earn the badge, PLUS get some sweet special.
--Lucky magazine has gone heavy into Foursquare. Are they your demo? Partner with them or a similar tuned-in property to offer promotions or sneak peaks at new gear/demos/behind-the-scenes.
--Leaderboard sponsorships: Leaderboards show top activity in a given market. In November ‘09 Pepsi sponsored the NYC leaderboard to raise $$ for a non-profit. At the time Foursquare users in NYC generated some 150k points on the leaderboard, Pepsi donated 4 cents per point to charity.
--Jimmy Choo ran a treasure hunt in London. Shoes were left at specific locations and users were sent out to find them. Finders keepers! Great press and WOM virality.
--Diesel ran a more sophisticated campaign in NYC to promote a sale at it’s flagship store: Users who checked in within a 3 block radius of the store were notified of the sale. Users who checked in at the store received a free t-shirt and were invited to participate in the Be Stupid campaign.
--Coach Men’s Store Cologne Giveaway: For opening weekend of their Men’s Store in NYC, Coach gave away free cologne ($85 value) to the first 200 customers who checked into the store. 10% of the traffic to the store that weekend came with Foursquare check-ins.
--MTV has set up “celebrity mode” Foursquare accounts that let fans know where reality stars are temporarily located. Great word-of-mouth, great turnouts.

Articles on specific campaigns run on Foursquare:
mashable.com/fashion-foursquare-diesel
mashable.com/2010/04/foursquare-jimmy-choo
mashable.com/fashion-location-based
mashable.com/foursquare-brands
http://ht.ly/1SHnH (21 case studies, Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl, and MyTown)
blog.foursquare.com/as-you-may-know-every-checkin-on-foursquare

Possible issue: Foursquare relies on user input for physical address locations. People game the system by entering addresses they're not actually at, thereby claiming false points/mayorships and creating user outrage. In comparison, Gowalla locations are gps based, this makes it easier to check-in, and you can't cheat on your location.

Gowalla allows virtual goods to be left or "dropped" at locations, and then picked up by others, kind of akin to virtual geocaching. Histories attach to these items (user X dropped item Z here yesterday). Branded virtual goods can be redeemed for real goods.

Possible business uses include scenarios such as: Retailer creates a virtual item and seeds it in various physical locations. It can be redeemed only on a given day. Gowalla sends out an announcement to its’ users, and then everyone goes to retailer on that day and gets the item or experience.

Like Foursquare, Gowalla offers custom event and place stamps (instead of badges) which show up in “passports”. Holders of these custom pins and stamps may show them for special treatment of some kind. Gowalla also allows brands and users to set up “trips” that guide others from one place to another. Pub crawl? City hot spots? Completing a curated trip and gathering all the stamps could earn the user gear or some other reward.
techcrunch.com/gowalla-business-models

FWIW, Foursquare seems to have more WOM virality, more discussion and updates (via twitter, Facebook) and is the darling of the SXSW crowd, but many think the Gowalla user interface is better. Both services are used almost exclusively on iphones, though android apps exist with others in the pipeline, notably for BB. If one of these services was used for a temporary event/location it would be smart to move users/the experience to a local, more permanent spot when the temporary event closes. Foursquare and the others are beginning to mine user data on behalf of brand marketers, creating a new, physical graph of customers and their movements.

Other Geo services include:

Brightkite, 2mm users:
Brightkite is less reward focused, and seems primarily geared to pure social networking, with location based photo and text posting and none of the game play of Gowalla and Foursquare. However Brightkite does offer “local promotions” and has signed up 100 plus brands to drive traffic and offer rewards in local stores: They just inked a deal for all 11,000 Starbucks locations, and have begun offering Starbuck’s badges like Foursquare. They also recently launched the nation's first augmented reality ad campaign with Best Buy: point your phone at a participating store, and receive special location-based offers. Brightkite is working with Layar, a technology which lets users see posts and comments thru their phone cameras overlaid on real world landmarks.

marketingvox.com/twitter-brightkite-push-ar-closer-to-mainstream
techcrunch.com/brightkite-2-million-users
thenextweb.com/fly-a-brightkite-into-a-starbucks-near-you

Loopt, 3mm users:
“Before there was Foursquare or Gowalla, Loopt was the original smart phone service for sharing your whereabouts with friends. The point is to let buddies know where you are so that they can join you, and to find hour-by-hour listings of all the cool stuff going on in your neck of the woods. However, while you can check in to locations, rewards are limited to coupons from nearby retailers.” Not user-editable, no game mechanics. laptopmag.com/loopt.aspx

Whrrl, ?? users:
“Whrrl is all about communities of people inspiring each other to take real-world action, and we’ve thought deeply about how to channel that for causes...At the core of Whrrl are Societies, groups of people who check in to the same kinds of places, who care about the same kinds of things. The whole experience is wrapped in an “influence” game, in which you gain points based on how successful you are at inspiring others to do your real-world recommendations. As you gain points, you level up in your Societies, and that unlocks higher-level “Social Offers” from merchants as well as special privileges in Whrrl.” Yet Whrrl lacks compelling case studies, and has changed it's business model and communications a few times in the last couple of years.
techcrunch.com/whrrl-3
blog.networksolutions.com/whrrl-increases-the-gamesmanship-of-location-based-services-by-inspiring-your-real-life-friends

MyTown, 2mm users:
Real estate based, MyTown is “like monopoly in the real world”. Check-ins at physical locations earn points which can be used to buy or improve properties (and ultimately towns). A MyTown user could “own” a given retail store, or stores. The more improvements to a piece of property you “own” the more rent (points) you make when a user checks in. While there are virtual goods exchanged by users, MyTown is more purely game based, there’s less of a social aspect: people play for the points, not for the community or for real-world rewards. It’s been called “the Farmville of location-based gaming.” See techcrunch.com/mytown-3

Facebook Geo: Massive potential, currently not available. Could launch any day or not for awhile. Much speculation as to whether Facebook Geo would play nice with other platforms or destroy them. See this AdAge article.

FYI Foursquare is hosting global MeetUps on June 16th...check it out and get involved here. Cheers!

The Brief:
In early 2009 PUMA began moving heavily into social media. Most PUMA brand pages were turned into blogs (PUMA Running, PUMA Ocean Racing, etc) and PUMA began developing presences in Facebook, Twitter and others while utilizing a range of social tools and platforms. How to make sense of this new space, properly manage communities and technologies, vet research and new partners, calculate ROI, and use the knowledge to improve programs, create value, measure performance and make sales?

coBRANDiT's Role:
Since February 2009 we have partnered with PUMA on a retainer basis to assist with program and platform development, research initiatives, and other projects related to the socialization of their business. Working out of their international office in Boston, we are continuing in this capacity through 2010. Specific projects to date include:

PUMA Football: Develop iPhone and BlackBerry mobile apps, technology and feeds. Assist with football content strategy, mobile and otherwise, surrounding African Cup of Nations and the 2010 World Cup. Get the iPhone app here.

PUMA Ocean Racing: Video distribution research & recommendations. Extensive platform set up and maintenance, including facebook, twitter, blog functions.

PUMA Running: Set up facebook page, manage Street Meet PR and limited advertising through facebook. Video production & distribution surrounding Street Meet. Develop and execute award winning Usain Bolt video distribution program (see case study here).

Ongoing research: The social media/WOM ROI question: Assigning value to fans/friends, figuring out market mix/word-of-mouth valuation methodologies, making research recommendations. Assist in vetting monitoring solutions, develop questions/analysis surrounding research results.

Monthly pull of comparative statistics for facebook, twitter, and youtube channels, competitive research. Ongoing research into ramifications of facebook platform updates and the effect on fan growth. Ongoing research and recommendations re: facebook app developers and use of dashboard management systems. Assist in vetting platform development proposals and composing strategy & budgeting docs.

PUMA Golf: Video production, tee-off party. PUMA City: Develop and populate elements of facebook page. Tretorn: Video distribution, optimization, & reporting. Sergio Rossi: Video distribution & optimization. Alexander McQueen RAW POWER: Analysis and recommendations related to video editing contest.

Research/expose "black hat" video distribution techniques (Findings were presented in our WOMMA Webinar, click here for deck).

Research/recommendations: 1) Brand presence/best practices in Orkut for S. American audience. 2) Marketing uses of mobile "Check-In" sites: Foursquare, Gowalla, etc. 3) Analysis and recommendations related to brand uses of photo sharing and archiving sites such as Flickr, Photobucket, etc.

Create blogger outreach master list by brand: Research existing resources/contacts and recommend new ones when appropriate.

We will continue to post examples of our PUMA work here in the months to come. Thank you PUMA for the opportunity to be a part of your team!

All three services rely on users "checking in" to physical locations where (depending on service) they can find other users, append data (tips, posts, pictures, etc.) and earn points. Gowalla and Foursquare have reward systems in place whereby users earn "badges" or "pins" or titles (such as "mayor"). Badges, pins, titles and points are so far not officially redeemable for anything, but business are beginning to create incentives/rewards for top users to check in. Brightkite is less reward focused, but recently launched the nation's first augmented reality ad campaign.

Current marketing uses in Foursquare include branded badges (earned with a certain # of checkins at given locations, showing badge may result in a special gift or experience) or rewards for mayors (mayors are top location visitors). In November 09 Pepsi sponsored the NYC leaderboard to raise $$ for a non-profit. Leaderboards show top activity in a given market. At the time foursquare users in NYC generated some 150,000 points on the leaderboard. Foursquare also allows TIPS to be included in location info, these tips could be sale items or other current specials. Gowalla has no such feature, though it does feature a type of virtual gifting that could be useful.

Possible issue: Foursquare relies on user input for physical address location. People game the system by entering addresses they're not actually at, thereby claiming false points/mayorships and creating user outrage. Gowalla locations are GPS based, this makes it easier to check-in, and you can't cheat on your location. It also allows virtual goods to be left or "dropped" at locations, and then picked up by others. Histories attach to these items (user x dropped item z here yesterday). Possible business uses include scenarios such as: Starbucks pays Gowalla X dollars to create a (R)ed item you can only pick up at a Starbucks on Y day. Gowalla sends out an announcement to its’ users, and then everyone goes to Starbucks.

Gowalla offers "pins" instead of Foursquare's "badges"...presumably branded pins could be produced...how would this differ from a virtual good? Pins would live with a user as long as they had their account and wouldn't be spent or dropped. Foursquare has more WOM virality, more discussion/updates via twitter for ex. and is the darling of the SXSW crowd (FWIW), but many seem to think the Gowalla user interface is better (both services are used almost exclusively on iphones, though android apps exist with others in the pipeline, notably for BB) If one of these services was used for a temporary event/location it would be smart to move users/the experience to a local, more permanent spot when the temporary event closes.

Then there's Brightkite...who recently launched the US's first AR (augmented reality) ad campaign with Best Buy. Unclear how this works within Brightkite's interface...Brightkite is working with Layar, which lets users see posts and comments thru their phone cameras overlaid on real world landmarks. Brightkite seems primarily geared to social networking, with location based photo and text posting, and none of the game play or potential marketing elements of Gowalla and Foursquare (with the exception of that AR ad play of course...)

These services tie the link between digital and offline: Unlike a Facebook fan, you actually know when a Gowalla or Foursquare user has entered your store or other target location (unless they're cheating of course...) Foursquare (and presumably Gowalla) are beginning to mine user data on behalf of brand marketers. Interesting articles on the space include:

Techcrunch: Gowalla business models
Pete Cashmore on Foursquare
Brightkite's AR solution
MarketingVOX on Brightkite and AR

Last Friday the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) awarded coBRANDiT client Daily Grommet with a 2009 Commendation of Excellence in the Corporate Media Creation category. This award recognizes our innovative use of video in Daily Grommet's social media powered e-commerce site, and is a reflection of the Grommet team's willingness to experiment with new forms of video production. From their award application:

"Video production is handled by coBRANDiT, they've proven to be wonderful partners able to adjust to our changing needs. They built us a basic in-office studio, provide professional 1 and 2 camera HD shoots on a weekly basis, got us started with Flip video cameras (plus assistance, training, and a tip sheet for new users), manage regular ooVoo video chats, and generally counsel us on content development and continuous improvement, all while handling daily editing of the content that floods in. Our videos now consist of a mix of studio content as well as material shot by our office staff, Grommet creators, and assorted family and friends. coBRANDiT sends us finished, compressed videos in the 2 formats we require and provides ongoing strategic assistance related to video distribution."

Congratulations to the Daily Grommet team, and thank you for bringing us along on the ride! Read more about our work with Daily Grommet here, or click on over and see it live at DailyGrommet.com. Watch the vid below for Daily Grommet's take on "citizen commerce":

A 2 part interview we shot at WOMMA's WOMM-U last spring: Above, Chris Pan discusses: Achieving goals via WOM | Facebook page as a voice | The engagement factor | Walls, tabs, microsites | Lenny Kravitz on Facebook | Tags | Brands with low follow rate | Quantifying business results. Part 2 is below.

In part 2 Chris talks about: Fan pages as an authentic voice | Brand fan pages by fans | Content is king | What people want to hear vs. what you want to tell them | Facebook marketing solutions | WOM is long term | WOM works best when integrated with social media.

Orkut 101: Orkut is a community platform owned by Google. They just launched a redesign today (10/29) that makes it much more Facebook-like, though currently limited to invite only so it's unclear how functions work. Every profile has the ability to promote text, photos, video. Options are pretty basic. Orkut is best known for Brazilian penetration but India is also big. Both countries are battling fb which just surpassed Orkut in India, Orkut just disabled friend exporting in an attempt to stop fb migration.

Brand mktg. in Orkut emphasizes targeted ad promotions underpinned by adsense (and brand widgets/experiences built on Google's opensocial platform, there are currently approx. 6k apps. in the directory). In Aug. 09 Orkut launched a StumbleUpon type ad promotions service whereby users vote an ad/video etc. up or down and spread it that way or not...it's called Orkut Promote (see this press release) Brands have to pay...it's not free. Best description of the system can be found here.

Other viral elements include embedded html in scrapbooks, or "scraps" which can be shared across networks (kind of like a widget). Functionality/presentation is limited. Branded communities do exist, but they pale in comparison to fb pages, for ex. see this MTV experience. If you're a big brand there are a number of rogue brand pages ("communities") you could engage, but the level of traffic/activity is often somewhat low. Beyond communities Orkut doesn't seem to offer varied advertising options similar to Facebook’s sponsored groups, social ads, pages etc.

Best practices at this point seem limited to:
1) Monitoring & engaging users on brand community pages (SOP for social media), though this will be complicated by any existing rogue pages. Can or should this be addressed? How to establish an authoritative brand voice if rogue pages exist?

2) Launching adsense programs, targeted ads, scraps widgets, custom apps. and/or Orkut Promote programs. This is simply going down the advertising road...really a similar strategy in many ways to Facebook, but with more limited options and in Portuguese. What are the ramifications of trying to poach Orkut community members and move them into Facebook?

Heidi Browning of MySpace talks about: Harness your advocates | Finding brand friends on MySpace | Hyper-targeted advertising | Advertising engagement | What is the impact of advertising in a social networking environment | Cultivation of creativity, that's what MySpace is all about | Creators and social activities | Cherry Coke example | Creating closed/private communities | Apply social learning to future campaigns | Video shot by coBRANDiT at WOMMA's WOMM-U conference, May 2009, Miami Beach, FL

What constitutes success in the world of B2B video? Is it view count? Comments? Embeds? SEO results? How do we measure engagement? This deck examines successful examples of video usage in the B2B environment, and compares B2B video with B2C. This deck was originally presented at The Conference Board, NYC, October 16, 2009. For more detail please contact Owen Mack, coBRANDiT.

We turned this vid around in 24 hours last week, with a b-roll package delivered same-day to local news outlets. From the press release:

Celebrating 80 years, Ocean Spray transformed Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots, into a sea of glimmering red cranberries for the cooperatives Patriot Place Bog. The 1,500 square foot, free-standing cranberry bog contains more than 2,000 pounds of Ocean Spray cranberries designed to recreate the beauty of a cranberry harvest.

The Patriot Place Bog kicked-off a weekend of activities with Ocean Spray's first ever Tailgating Recipe Contest judged by Ming Tsai. Three finalists were selected to compete in a head-to-head cook-off for the title of Unofficial Official Tailgate Recipe of the New England Patriots on October 15.

Find the winning recipe Grilled Bacon Apple Bites with Chunky Cranberry Spread and other game day favorites at OceanSpray.com.

Facts on FiOS: Blogger demo at Gillette Stadium, Foxborough MA. We put this piece together in 24 hours as part of Verizon's effort at FactsOnFiOS.com. Verizon invited local bloggers to Gillette Stadium to check out FiOS's advanced features, we captured the session and blogger feedback for online distribution (part of a national series of blogger demos).

Here's a compilation of the Q&A from the video distribution webinar we recently ran on behalf of WOMMA. Thanks again to all who participated, and if you have further questions don't hesitate to get in touch.

Q: Basic question: What is the optimal place for your video to reside (generally)? On your site, on YouTube, both, etc.

A: There really is no one "best place", though there may be places that drive more traffic than others based on your use of the social web. In practice, many of my clients place their vids on youtube (and perhaps a few other video sharing sites) and then embed the vid in facebook, their site/blog, etc. and then tweet about it or otherwise publicize it. Kinda depends on what you're trying to achieve with the video, and where your audience resides.

Q: Do you convert all video for IPOD downloads?

A: We do not convert video for iPods unless we believe there is a good reason to. The fact of the matter is that getting your vids set up to run in iTunes is kind of a PIA, and unless you're producing a stream of content it really makes no sense. Discovery is tougher in iTunes, so you really have to market your channel aggressively. Furthermore, iPhone users can watch on YouTube already, so they're covered. I think iPod conversion makes sense if you're making vids that really are about portability, like a city travel guide or something that people would need to have with them.

Q: Do you know of any media companies effectively using video to retain/gain audience?

A: Of the big media co's i think NBC is the leader. The example I used in the webinar is the site/content they've built around Heroes: Check it out. You've got to dig around a bit but they've got different levels of content for different levels of interest. I think this is a strategy that could work for any brand/company using video. Here's an interview on the subject we did w/ Matt Allen, the guy behind NBC's digital strategy.

Q: Is there any way to get Street Team Flip video content to download to an office a few hundred miles away?

A: There are license-able platforms available for sharing internal video on a large scale (see VidiTalk for ex.), or you could set up an FTP hub for street teams/editors to use. In practice we use yousendit.com which can be a hassle content management-wise but is fast and cheap.

Q: I'd like to some tips for shooting good video...it appeared on one of the slides.

A: If you're doing Flip vid/street team work you might be interested in our shooting tip sheet:
Check it out here, there's a download-able .pdf at the bottom of the post.

Q: If you have a video posted on YouTube, which is off your site or on a blog, how do you generate a click through to your site? (Since you can't post an actual clickable link on a youtube video). Is it simply them reading the web address on the title of the video and typing it to their browser manually?

A: Yes, if the vid is embedded in some site/location where you have no control over the related text or metadata that's about it. YouTube viewers have to see the title and then manually enter it. But if you're open to using another video sharing platform you can embed a clickable link. See Viddler for ex. Viddler allows you to insert clickable links and messages in the time line. Pretty cool feature, and returns great SEO results.

Q: Is it a good idea for businesses to accept friend requests from individuals on Youtube?

The answer depends upon whether you want to actively engage YouTube viewers in that way or not, and i would advise you to treat YouTube community members the same as any other community platform you may be engaged in (twitter, facebook, etc.) Friending people in any of these environments can help you get your message out, but it does potentially open you to spammers or worse. It's really a community management function, many companies create basic guidlines and have their PR/mktg department monitor comments and friend requests uniformly across a variety of channels.

Q: I'm looking to create a video contest, how do you suggest getting consumers to submit video, social, TV, or radio or all of the above?

A: This is a biggie for which i have no short answer besides: Make the reward good, focus your message, and be prepared to actively market the contest thru paid placements and vigorous community management/outreach. It helps if your contest/promotion is about something that has an enthusiastic, technically savvy fan base. Contests are notoriously tough to get traction with. It's usually music acts that are successful, or mass culture efforts around movies or something.

Q: My blip.tv account was deleted for "advertising." I know that this is one of the sites supported by tubemogul. Should I go back into all of my videos and remove any traces of my company's name, contact number, email, etc?

A: Different sites have different policies concerning the types of content they will support. Blip.tv is particularly focused on episodic, storytelling content and "shows", their business model depends in part upon selling video ads within a popular series. While Tubemogul supports numerous sites, not all of them are appropriate for all types of content. (Tubemogul is a service for batch uploading video to numerous sites simultaneously). I wouldn't worry about cleaning titles, etc. from your videos on other sites. There are plenty of options for free video hosting out there, if one site has a problem and you can't use it, no big deal.

Q: Are any of these "Video Widgets" open source or are they all custom/paid?

A: One good widget building solution I have used is SproutBuilder. Not really open source (or free) but it is inexpensive and very flexible. It's basically a WYSIWYG editor that allows you to build multi-functional widgets, with or without a video component. Sharing features are handled by Gigya/Wildfire, so you can buy paid placement for your widget through their network if desired.

Q: Demographic stats on YouTube (as shown in your example)...do they cost anything?

A: No, they're free. Check "Insights" related to your channel (also available from your "my videos" page), see also the "Statistics & Data" drop down under your individual videos.

Q: How do you get a video featured on YouTube or another video sharing website?

A: Each site has their own methodology for picking featured videos. Some of them are paid, some of them adhere to an algorithm (typically a mix of views/velocity/engagement), some rely on human editors. Such is the case with YouTube. YouTube has 10 people sitting in a secret bunker in an undisclosed location making decisions on what to feature. There is no way to game YouTube's featured front page vids.

That's it. More questions? Get in touch with coBRANDiT!

Related Links: Webinar Q&A Re: Video Distribution, Jeben Berg of YouTube on How to Make Your Videos Successful, Flip Video Shooting Tips for Distributed Production Teams and Novices, Matt Allen of NBC on their innovative online video approach: They give their stars Flip-type cameras for use back stage. coBRANDiT's Capabilities and Case Studies, Get In Touch With coBRANDiT.

Hey all--
Thanks for tuning in to my WOMMA webinar today. The presentation deck will be available soon! I also promised a link to my Flip Video shooting tips, here's the post. Get in contact if you have further questions!

Here's a great interview we shot at the last WOMMA event. Jeben is Google/YouTube's lead creative for cross platform solutions (he actually has a two-sided business card!) and in this vid covers partnering w/ top producers, buying search, linked multiple vids, and other tactics to get your videos out there.